Was able to watch the segment live, overall I think it went very well. Choosing a general approach to commentary on MK64 worked out great I think. It was noticable how comfortable you were talking about tasing in general rather then trying to point out everything happening in the run, a lot of it was pretty obvious just from watching anyway.
SM64 commentary though was not so good in my opinion. That one definitely could have used 5 minutes before the run started to explain some details and some history of how significant the moat door skip is.
Overall I liked the segment, and I'm still amazed these runs work on a real N64, it's just plain impressive to watch.
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Alyosha wrote:
SM64 commentary though was not so good in my opinion.
So about that... Long and short of it, the first resource I identified for SM64 commentary wasn't as knowledgeable as I thought and we agreed to tap someone else but that person didn't show up in the (admittedly cramped and packed) stream room. In between MK64 and SM64 the audience identified someone who was knowledgeable about speedrunning SM64. Unfortunately, he was seriously nervous on mic and choked, something I didn't expect at all. I rolled with it but I'd agree that the commentary wasn't all that great for SM64.
Anyway, it was a good experience for our family. It was a fair bit of driving but it was nice being able to come back home to our own beds. The kids had fun at the park we stopped off at and my wife enjoyed our trip to Ikea on the way home. Compared to the stress of AGDQ 2017, this was a positively pleasant experience - it was perhaps 30 hours of work ahead of time to prepare and it only cost us about $100 total after fuel, bridge tolls, parking fees at the event, and parts.
I'm continuing to ponder what I can do to get better at commentary. A lot of it comes down to practice, and it strikes me as somewhat like trying to prepare for a piano recital. You can practice on a piano at home (in the same way I can practice commentary while streaming on Twitch) but it's not quite the same thing as practicing in a high-energy room in front of a live audience. Comparing my own confidence at Californithon as a presenter to the early GDQ events I can tell I *am* making progress but I can always be better. I'll continue to practice however I can while balancing time with my family and hopefully I'll be ready to go by SGDQ 2018.
Thanks again to everyone for the support, especially Alyosha and weatherton ahead of time and Jaku and MeGotsThis at the event, as well as Jeff_In_3D for inviting us to submit in the first place.
Overall this was an improvement. The setup was described, / there were lead-ins, people understood what was going on and the information provided generally was useful. What you could not provide directly was backed by resources and a name drop, a good way to handle it and promote at the same time.
Sticking points:
Asking a commentator "what do you think should happen" during a run, and having them try to cram some weird response in the span of a few seconds, doesn't really open up anything helpful with on-screen banter. Actually it's a big detractor. This ends up putting someone on the spot and the result is someone trying to explain two different things at once. The similar segment at AGDQ2017 was worse. No form of this works.
Speaking really fast to cram in as much detail as possible. Slow down a bit. Speedrun, slowtalk. Let the robot do the racing.
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Excuse how terribly I'm about to explain all this.
I think this greatly shows the contrasting difference between TASVideos at AGDQ vs TASVideos at SGDQ/Other.
Within AGDQ not much is explained.
It's pretty much feels like it's just roll with what you see and enjoy it.
SGDQ/Other it's more presented and formal.
In this game. Just do this and that... and now there's a shit ton of bats.
Yeah, this is just 1 controller using 4 consoles out of sync due to some specific reason that Spikestuff can't remember why (don't bother), but it's 100% synced on emulator.
I think the one downside to the SGDQ that I can give as an example was during VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV where the guest commentator (who doesn't run it anymore at that point) was right off with everything and felt as tho he was more up of it, not to discredit him he did run WWW but going over with other runners that did VVWVV at some point knew that he was just not a good co-commentator for the TAS.
During SM64 the co-commentator was as you wrote he was nervous (as hell) and you steered it and made it more of a formal conversation at one point.
His banter at Bowser in the Fire Sea was good. All in all he was very shy, he did look like he knew a good bit of the game just that I won't be able to follow him, cause I didn't hear his name clearly enough ;-;.
The shadow commentator put in a few words... about having their own personal flare in their input.
I think that's the contrast between the SGDQ/Other performances.
If you can get a commentator for it, you have a bloody amazing time, even if they're put right on the spot, and can't say much, they tried their best.
Honestly protomagicalgirl and MitchFlowerPower were probably the best co-commentators that we got. It was all up and everything and having a good time with what's going on (and eating a hot pocket).
I honestly screwed up this post cause I cannot form a coherent thought about this as it's something that's hard for me to do as a person who likes the oh, that happened factor we've done on AGDQ but also prefers the oh, so that's how it happened at the other stages.
WebNations/Sabih wrote:
+fsvgm777 never censoring anything.
Disables Comments and Ratings for the YouTube account.Something better for yourself and also others.
